TOM TELESCO, A BOLT FROM THE COLTS
TELESCO NO LONGER BEHIND THE SCENES

New Chargers GM has played valuable yet quiet role while working through NFL ranks

The ceremony introducing the new general manager to the media and team staff was held at Chargers Park, under a large party tent adjacent to an outdoor, Olympic-sized, sun-splashed swimming pool, fully functional and inviting, even on a dead-of-winter afternoon.

Tom Telesco — the lean, clean-cut Buffalo boy whose sharp suit couldn’t belie the Rust Belt he wears so proudly — had arrived in a faraway and far different place.

Through a hundred or so questions, on camera and off, the 40-year-old Telesco maintained the cool, executive demeanor you’d expect of a man who’d just been handed the keys to a National Football League team. No matter how wobbly the wheels, no matter how deeply into disrepair the Chargers have fallen, Telesco made it look as if nothing seemed too difficult.

Well, actually, there was that one thing. The text message from 2,600 miles away.

“My dad just sent it,” said Telesco. “It choked me up a bit.”

Indeed, even before he could utter those few words, Telesco had to gather himself. Privately, undramatically, touchingly, he lowered his head and clenched his teeth for more than a few seconds, breathing deeply to keep from losing it.

“I’m so close to him,” continued Telesco, now completely composed. “He’s so happy about this. My mom passed away a while back. My dad’s my dad, but also my role model. I just always wanted to be like him.”

Dominic Telesco was a career guidance counselor who sent his only son to a private boys’ school in Athol Springs, N.Y., a few miles south of Buffalo and hard by Lake Erie.

It was at St. Francis High that Tom Telesco first made the acquaintance of the Polian family, an association that set him on the path that has led him to San Diego and one of only 32 such jobs in the NFL.

“I’m sure a lot of people are saying ‘Who is Tom Telesco?’ ” said Jerry Smith, the longtime football coach at St. Francis. “He comes from a different environment. He’s a blue-collar guy, an under-the-radar guy.”

That changed on Wednesday. Drastically.

While his talent-assessment skills made him very much a contributor to the Indianapolis Colts’ great success over the past 15 years, Telesco was strictly a behind-the-scenes guy in Indy’s scouting department, kept largely unavailable to the media. Indeed, the NFL is the ultimate control freak.

For the first time, though, Telesco is right out front and center. Until he picks a new head coach, at least, he is the face and the voice of a franchise that should be desperate to win back its constituency after three years without a postseason.

For his part, Telesco was open and engaging at first meeting, seeming comfortable enough in the spotlight. (The married father of three preferred, however, that no one in his family be interviewed just yet.) The words most frequently assigned to him have been “humble” and “honest.” The real challenge to his credibility comes when he tells people he really is 40 years old, not 10 years younger.